Discussions on the situation in Chechnya often follow the line of the humanitarian, human rights or political disaster that it has been for the last thirteen years. But what is the root of all these problems? Surely it is the Chechens’ lack of independence. After all, that is what the Chechens have been struggling for for the last 400 years.

: "With no end yet in sight for the long dark night of the Iraq war, The Nation magazine is coming out this week with an article that goes into great and disturbing detail about the brutal treatment of Iraqi civilians by some U.S. soldiers and marines. "

Ethiopians in the Ogaden Need Our Help — Let Us Stand United Against the Terrorism on Our People! - Ethiopian Review Opinion JournalIn that article that appeared on the front page of the Times, Gettleman reported that in addition to women, children and elders being killed, any men—even elders and the young—are seen as a threat. As a result, numbers of them are being killed or arrested for only “looking suspicious.” Villages and homes are being burned and property is being destroyed. Their cattle—the main life support of these nomadic people—are being killed, creating certain suffering and hardship that has led to a humanitarian crisis where many other innocent Ethiopians will die. Now, many thousands are displaced, without food and basic necessities, and the Ethiopian National Defense Forces are preventing humanitarian supplies from reaching them.

West will fail, says ex-CIA operative: "AS PESSIMISM grows in the US about Iraq, the American commander there has warned that the war will take many years to win and a former top CIA officer has told a Sydney conference that defeat is inevitable in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit until 2004, said the West was losing the global battle against Muslim insurgents.

Mr Scheuer said the US and its allies had failed to commit enough troops to win and did not understand the grievances motivating Muslim insurgents.

'We in the West are fighting an enemy we have woefully chosen to misunderstand and to whom we are losing hands down and on every front,' he said."

Marine shot bound and gagged Iraqi, court martial told - Yahoo! News: "CAMP PENDLETON, United States (AFP) - A Marine shot an Iraqi civilian as he lay bound and gagged in a bomb crater after US servicemen kidnapped him in a late-night raid, a court martial heard Tuesday. "Trent Thomas fired seven shots into the chest of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, who prosecutors say was murdered after being dragged from his home by eight soldiers in Hamdania, west of Baghdad, on April 26 last year.

Thomas denies murder, claiming he was only following orders. He is one of three Marines who has still to face charges over the killing, one of a series of incidents that have tarnished the reputation of US forces in Iraq.

Four other Marines and a Navy medic have already pleaded guilty to charges related to Awad's death.

The second day of Thomas's court martial at the Marines' southern California Camp Pendleton base heard testimony from Melson Bacos, one of the eight soldiers involved in the kil…

Guards steal $282 million from a bank in Baghdad - International Herald Tribune: "BAGHDAD: In an astonishing heist, guards at a bank here made off with more than a quarter-billion dollars on Wednesday, according to an official at the Interior Ministry.The robbery, of $282 million from the Dar Es Salaam bank, a private financial institution, raised more questions than it answered, and officials were tight-lipped about the crime. The local police said two guards engineered the robbery, but an official at the Interior Ministry said three guards were involved.Both confirmed that the stolen money was in American dollars, not Iraqi dinars. It was unclear why the bank had that much money on hand in dollars, or how the robbers managed to move such a large amount without being detected."

Praying for a Terrorist Strike: The GOP's Newest Political Strategy by William Norman Grigg: "Former Republican Senator Rick Santorum made the grand crusade against “Islamic fascism” the central focus of his unsuccessful 2006 re-election effort. On numerous occasions the preening Keystone State solon – who couldn't glance at a mirror without seeing Churchill's bulldog demeanor glowering back at him – insisted that it was the “destiny” of “this generation” to fight an apocalyptic war against radical Islam. Unlike his more equivocal comrades in the Republican branch of the War Party, Santorum made it clear that his preferred “exit strategy” for Iraq would be to invade (or at least bomb) Iran. "

LobeLog.com » Blog Archive » Giuliani, the Likud Candidate?: "Of the seven other members of Giuliani’s “Senior Foreign Policy Advisory Board,” several have also been associated with PNAC and the CPD, most spectacularly, the legendary former editor of Commentary magazine, Norman “World War IV” Podhoretz, whose most recent contribution to Western-Islamic understanding was his article, “The Case for Bombing Iran” (an eight-minute “must-see” video version of which is available on YouTube."

The report steers clear of widely reported atrocities, such as the massacre in Haditha in 2005, but instead unearths a pattern of human rights abuses. "It's not individual atrocity," Specialist Garett Reppenhagen, a sniper from the 263rd Armour Battalion, said. "It's the fact that the entire war is an atrocity."

About Me

I am concerned with the direction the US is taking. I have lived in the US since 1990 and never afraid as much since the September, 2001 attack by terror plot (government, group ... don't know the fact) on New York and the pentagon. Many innocent people died that day, but, the response was the most foolish American policy ever. Civil liberty curbed, detention without trial became a norm, torture used, dissent voices shot down. Now since 2003, the US is engaging in unlawful war where bound to be losing. My voice may not count but I see no future for American kids who are going to find bankrupt country some day. The reversal policy is urgent.